At a Los Angeles Times in-house awards ceremony a week ago, columnist Steve Lopez addressed the elephant in the room.

Speaking to the entire staff, he said, "Raise your hand if you would quit if the paper was bought by Austin Beutner's group." No one raised their hands.

"Raise you hand if you would quit if the paper was bought by Rupert Murdoch." A few people raised their hands.

Facing the elephant trunk-on, "Raise your hand if you would quit if the paper was bought by the Koch brothers." About half the staff raised their hands.

Prediction: About five of these guys would quit.

As Peter Venkman said to Janine when she threatened to quit Ghostbusters, Inc., I'm sure people of your caliber would have no problem finding gainful employment in either the food preparation or household cleanliness industries.

In case these guy's haven't noticed, the economy's in rather bad shape. Especially in journalism.

But I do encourage all of these people to join the Obama Economy they've been such enormous fans of, from afar. I do invite them to engage with it.

There's another great reason these undistinguished reporters at a failed newspaper should quit: The LATimes itself coined the term "funemployment," extolling the liberation of not having a job in Obama's America.

I would dearly love to see them enjoy the fruits of this funemployment they were previously such boosters of.

Thanks to Andy, @theh2.

Music to Koch Ears? Ken in NH writes:

Such a straw poll will just make the purchasing the paper more attractive. Just think of all the money saved on severance benefits since the Kochs will probably have to fire most of the journalists in any case.